Emily Knows Best
by The Yank and The Brit
Summary: Exactly what secret message did Emily Farnsworth hide within the picture she drew of Lee and Amanda after The Legend of Das Gleisterschloss? Post Series. Takes place shortly after our story Miracle at 4247 Maplewood


**Disclaimers:** Scarecrow and Mrs. King is copyrighted to Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Production Company. This story, however, is copyrighted to the mentioned author. This story is for entertainment purposes ONLY. If you would like to add it to an archive, please just let me know.

**Summary:** Exactly what secret message did Emily Farnsworth hide within the picture she drew of Lee and Amanda after The Legend of Das Gleisterschloss?

**Time Frame:** Post Series. Takes place shortly after "Miracle at 4247 Maplewood" written by myself and Jan Goldstein (The Yank and the Brit). The marriage is no longer secret and Lee and Amanda have a little baby girl.

**Author's Notes:** This story is the result of a suggestion made after Miracle at 4247 Maplewood was written. We'd mentioned the picture that Emily had made of Lee and Amanda after wrapping up the Das Geisterschloss case and one of our readers requested that a story be written to describe exactly what message Emily had hidden inside the drawing. In our story, _Miracle_, Emily shared the secret message with Dotty and made Dotty promise to find out if Lee and Amanda had ever figured out what it was. This is my take of what she might have hidden, and how Dotty finds out if Lee and Amanda had figured it out.

_The Legend of Das Geisterschloss_ was written by Steve Hattman.

And last but not least, a huge thank you goes to my beta and writing partner, Jan, for helping make this story all it could be.

**Rating:** PG

_**Emily Knows Best**_

_**By Amy Firestine**_

Dotty stepped down off the landing and entered the kitchen. The first thing she noticed was the hush that had fallen over the room. Her daughter was preparing some bottles for her one-month old granddaughter, and her son-in-law was standing next to Amanda, with a sleeping Jenna cradled in his arms. They were the perfect picture.

Dotty watched as her daughter gazed at her husband, and it seemed that they were sharing a thought, because they both smiled and then Amanda went back to her task. The silent communication she had just witnessed wasn't the first time she'd seen this happen. She had walked into any number of rooms in this house many times since the truth of Lee had moved in with them, only to find the pair staring at each other, almost as if they were having a whole conversation that no one else could hear.

Looking at them now Dotty was suddenly reminded of something Emily Farnsworth had told her, and she realized that the British lady was, indeed, correct. Emily had confided in her the secret message hidden in the beautiful picture she had drawn of Lee and Amanda that was now hanging in the upstairs hallway. She had been a little surprised to find out just how long that picture had been around but had enjoyed hearing from Emily how it had come to be. The story of Amanda and Lee going to Austria to rescue their friend had seemed like something from one of her spy novels, only better.

"Dotty?" Lee asked with concern in his voice as he made his way to where his mother-in-law was standing. Aside from the fact that she was blocking his path upstairs, she seemed to have a kind of lost expression on her face. Clearing his throat, he tried again to get his mother-in-law's attention.

Dotty had been so lost in thought that she didn't realize that her son-in-law was no longer standing beside his wife, until she heard his voice directly in front of her. "Oh, Lee, I'm sorry, did you need to get past?" She spoke quietly, so as not to wake her sleeping granddaughter.

Lee nodded. "Yes, but that can wait. Is everything okay? You seemed a million miles away just now."

Dotty chuckled softly. "Yes, I'm fine. Just thinking about something Emily told me once." She stepped aside to let Lee pass. "I can see from the curious look on your face that you'd love to know what it is." She smiled when her son-in-law nodded. "Go put my granddaughter in her crib, and when you come back, I'll share my thoughts with you."

"Okay," Lee glanced back towards his wife, who, based on her own curious expression, he knew had heard the exchange between Dotty and himself. Anxious to know what could have transpired between Dotty and Emily, he carefully made his way upstairs to put his sleeping daughter in her room.

Dotty smiled and made her way into the living room. Taking a seat in the arm chair, she waited for her daughter and son-in-law to join her so that she could finally fulfill the promise she'd made to Emily. Emily had told her the story behind the picture on the night Jenna had been born. The family friend had made her promise to find out if Lee and Amanda had ever figured out what it was that she had hidden inside the drawing.

However, ever since Jenna's birth, things had been way too crazy for Dotty to find a moment to begin to accomplish the task that had been set upon her. After the blizzard on Christmas Eve had subsided, the ambulance arrived and took Amanda and Jenna to the hospital. They stayed there for the better part of the week, and when they came home again, they all had to adjust to new schedules. Then a few days later it had been New Year's Eve, and now, almost exactly one month to the day she'd made the promise, she was finally able to find out if her daughter and son-in-law had any clue as to what the message Emily had hidden in the picture really was.

Amanda finished putting the pre-made bottles in the refrigerator and then made her way into the living room. She glanced at her mother and couldn't help but notice that her mother looked like one of the boys at Christmas, waiting for her to open one of their presents. "What are you up to, Mother?" She asked, eyeing her mother skeptically.

Dotty put on her best innocent face. "I'm not up to anything, dear."

Amanda narrowed her eyes slightly. "Why don't I believe you?"

Dotty laughed. "Relax, Amanda, I have a question to ask you, but it has to wait until Lee comes back."

Amanda started thinking about the events of the last few weeks and couldn't begin to guess what it was her mother wanted to ask her and Lee. Letting out a breath, she glanced towards the stairs, willing her husband to show his face. Then, as if sensing her silent plea, she heard Lee's footsteps on the last few steps. The moment he stepped down off the landing, she anxiously patted the cushion next to her.

Lee quickly made his way over to the couch and sat down beside Amanda. "Any clue what this is about?" he leaned over and whispered to his wife.

Amanda shrugged and then looked over towards her mother. "Okay, Mother, Lee's here, now can you tell us what this is all about?"

Dotty smiled. "You make it sound so serious, Amanda, and I assure it's nothing more than idle curiosity."

"Mo-th-er," Amanda let out an exasperated breath.

"All right, all right." Dotty laughed. "I made a promise to Emily the night Jenna was born… "

"Emily?" Lee's tone was concerned. "This has to do with Emily? Is she okay?"

Dotty nodded. "Relax, Lee, it's nothing serious. It has to do with the picture she drew of the two of you… the one hanging upstairs." Watching as both her daughter and son-in-law visibly relaxed, but still wore quizzical expressions, she continued, "she told me how the picture came to be and she wondered if you two ever figured out the message she'd hidden within the drawing." Sitting further back in the arm chair, she gazed at the couple. "So, the question I have to ask you both is, did you figure out the message?"

Amanda turned and gazed at her husband with a thoughtful expression as she pondered the question and realized that while she had attempted several times to find the hidden letters, she'd never found more than a few. She remembered staring at it once or twice after it had been hung in the hallway, but never long enough to find what Emily had hidden. Which, she had admitted to herself, was quite surprising now that she stopped to think about it, because she loved a good puzzle and was shockingly amazed at how long she'd let this one go unsolved. "I hate to admit it, but unless you discovered something I didn't," she looked over at her mother, "then no, we never did."

Lee shook his head. "I never did. In fact the last time I even thought about it was that morning in that café when Emily gave us the picture. I remember that we couldn't agree on what we saw and finally we both just gave up."

"Right." Amanda nodded. "And then it spent the next two years rolled up in the back of your closet."

"And another six months in the back of yours." Lee raised his eyebrows knowingly towards his wife. He didn't need to voice what he was thinking, and from the returning look she was giving him, he knew she understood. Amanda had come across the picture, rolled up in his closet the day they were cleaning it out. It was probably one of the very few things he'd hidden in there that he hadn't minded her finding, since it related to her. She had been overjoyed to find it and said it didn't belong hiding in his closet. She had planned on taking it home and getting it framed to hang in her room, because it wouldn't matter if her mother or the boys saw it, since they knew the two of them were dating. However, life had interrupted and it had never gotten framed, but instead had been pushed into the back of her closet until Dotty had come across it and took it upon herself to have it framed.

Dotty cleared her throat. Lee and Amanda were doing it again; having that silent conversation. She cleared her throat once more and this time got their attention. "Well, I think that it's high time you two figured out the message Emily left for you." She shook her head in amusement as the pair just stared at her. "Lee, why don't you go up and take the picture off the wall, and bring it on down?"

Amanda smiled politely at her mother. She really wouldn't mind taking the time, but right now time was one thing she didn't have enough of these days. "I would really love to, but I still have things to take care of, and Jenna could wake up at any moment."

"Then I'll go get her if she does wake up." Dotty smiled. "And I'll even get the laundry started." She turned her attention towards her son-in-law. "And I won't take any excuses from you either, young man."

Lee glanced once at his wife, who shrugged her shoulders helplessly, before rising from the couch. "I'll just be a minute then."

As her husband made his way to the stairs, Amanda looked directly at her daughter's grandmother. "Mother," she began using the no-nonsense tone she used with the boys, "why is it so important that we figure out what Emily hid in the picture, and does it have to be right now?"

"Yes, it has to be now, because who knows when the next opportunity will arise. And," Dotty's expression turned serious, "because, I made a promise to someone and I always keep my promises. I assure you that it's nothing more sinister than that."

"How do you want to do this?" Lee asked as he re-entered the room carrying the picture. "Or more importantly, where?"

Amanda shrugged. "Right here on the couch is fine. We'll just hold it up between us and point things out as we see them."

Dotty jumped up from her seat. "I'll go grab a pad and a pen." At the questioning gaze she received from Lee, she smiled. "To write down the letters you find. It'll make it easier for you to unscramble the message that way."

Amanda shook her head and chuckled. "I don't think I've seen her this excited since we told her she was going to be a grandmother again."

Lee leaned closer to his wife and whispered, "Did she give you any clue as to why this is so important to her?"

"She said it had to do with fulfilling a promise to Emily, and that's all it is." Amanda gave a half shrug and then focused on the picture.

"Do you even remember any of the letters we found before?" Lee turned his attention to the picture as well and began scanning it.

Amanda closed her eyes and tried to remember back to that day in the café. She remembered being overjoyed at the present and then sadly realized that the picture was going to find a home in a dusty corner somewhere, most likely in one of Lee's closets. She knew it would have to go home with Lee because she couldn't chance bringing it into her house, just in case her mother found it and she knew that there was no way that Lee, at the time, was going to hang it up. Opening her eyes, she focused on the trees. "I remember I found an 'A', right about here." She reached out and pointed to the letter in the trees.

"Right and I'd found an 'L', though I can't remember for the life of me where that 'L' is." Lee snapped his fingers and instantly he looked over at his mother-in-law who was now seated back in the arm chair. "This is a breeze. I don't know why we didn't realize it before. The message isn't a message, it's our names. I bet if we look long enough we'll find all the letters to spell out Lee and Amanda."

Dotty shook her head. "You're quite wrong Lee."

Lee watched with instant chagrin as his wife shook her head as well. "I'll accept a no from your mother, but how could you possibly know that Emily hadn't spelled out our names?"

"Because," Amanda stated matter-of-factly, "if you think hard enough, you'll remember that the 'L' you thought you saw as actually an 'M' not an 'L', and add to that the fact that I clearly remember finding a 'T' over here," she pointed to a portion of the picture. "And here's the 'G' I'd discovered that day, too. So, unless I'm mistaken, there's no 'T' or 'G' in either one of our names."

Lee looked closer at the letter his wife thought was a 'G'. "Amanda, that's not a 'G'," he commented pointing to the letter. "That's an 'O'. And if memory serves me correctly, you said that my 'L' was an 'N' not an 'M'."

Amanda rolled her eyes and shook her head. "No, I said it was an 'M', you just misunderstood me. You did that a lot back then."

Lee stared incredulously at his wife. "I did not."

Amanda patted her husband's arm affectionately. "Yes, sweetheart, you did." Then seeing the obstinate look on his face she sighed. "Okay, so maybe misunderstood is the wrong word, but you have to admit you didn't always listen to me. In fact, after awhile I think you sort of tuned me out."

"I never tuned you out, but you're right, I suppose I did kind of 'ignore' some of the things you said back then." Lee leaned forward and placed a quick but tender kiss on her lips. "I'm sorry."

Amanda returned the kiss and then gently laid her head against his forehead. "It's all right, love, you've more than made up for that in recent years."

"Hmm-hmmm." Dotty smiled as the two looked over in her direction. "This is all very touching and fascinating, but you have work to do." She tapped the pad gently with the pen. "I can confirm that you have correctly found the following letters: an 'A', an 'O'…"

"See told you that 'G' was an 'O'." Lee smiled smugly as he pointed to the aforementioned letter.

Amanda stared closer at the image. "It still looks like a 'G' to me."

Lee shook his head. "No, look closer. What you think is the line of the 'G' is actually a tree branch. If you look close enough you'll see that the letter is a fully closed 'O'."

"Hmm…" Amanda watched as Lee's finger followed the path of the letter. "You're right. Okay, so that's an 'O'." She turned towards her mother. "What other letters did we find?"

"Well, I might be giving something away since I don't know what letter you're referring to, but you're both correct, there is an 'M' and an 'L'." Dotty glanced at the couple. "And lastly, I can confirm that you are correct in the 'T' you found. But," she pointed to the back of the picture, "you still have a few more letters to find."

"Can you give us a hint, Mom?" Lee asked doing his best to butter his mother-in-law up. He knew she loved it when he called her 'mom' and frankly, as much as he enjoyed a good walk down memory lane, there was a lot of stuff he had to do, and trying to find an old message Emily had hidden, wasn't really on his list.

Dotty shook her head and smiled. "Nice try, Lee, but buttering me up isn't going to work. I'm not going to give you any clues as to what the message is."

Lee glanced at her with his best innocent expression. "I was only going to ask if you could tell us how many more letters we have to find."

Dotty scrunched her face in mock thought. "I'll think about it, but let's see how you two do on your own first."

"Lee," Amanda excitedly elbowed her husband's side. "I just found two more letters."

Lee returned his attention to the picture. "Where?"

"Right here," Amanda pointed to a curl in her hair, "Emily drew an 'S'." She glanced over the top of the picture and watched as her mother wrote the letter down, confirming the fact that she'd correctly found a letter.

Lee nodded. "You're right. Okay, so where's the other one?"

"Here." Amanda pointed to a spot just above Lee's head. "It's a 'U'."

"Good eyes." Lee smiled lovingly at his wife. "I don't think I would have found either one of those."

Amanda glanced over the picture. "Mother, can I see that pad please."

Lee watched his wife curiously. "Do you think we have enough letters?"

"I don't know," Amanda shrugged as she accepted the paper from her mother. "I just want to take a look at what we have so far and see if I can make any kind of sense of the letters." She turned her attention back towards her husband. "While I do this, why don't you see if you can find any other letters we haven't found?"

"Sure." Lee nodded and then, holding the picture with both hands so his wife could try and turn the letters they had into a word or words, he turned his attention back onto the drawing.

Amanda stared long and hard at the letters. She didn't need her mother to give them any kind of clue to know that there was only one word hidden in the picture. Emily had confided in her the first time they'd met and she'd given Emily the grand tour of D.C., that as much fun as it was to hide the letters, it was way too complicated to try and hide more than one word in each of her drawings.

Amanda counted the letters they had so far and came up with seven. What was Emily trying to tell them? She rewrote the letters a few times until she came up with two separate words: 'soul' and 'mat' and her eyes grew wide with understanding. They may not have found all the letters, but she didn't need them. She knew exactly what the word was. "Soulmates," she stated proudly and glanced over at her mother for confirmation.

Dotty nodded and smiled. "Excellent, darling. Emily's going to be so happy to know you finally figured it out."

Lee glanced at the pad of paper. "How did you come up with that so fast?"

Amanda shrugged. "You know me, I love a good puzzle, and once I got the letters rearranged enough, I knew exactly what it had to be. Emily obviously saw in an instant what it took us years to figure out."

Lifting the picture up, Lee gently lifted it over the arm of the couch and leaned it against the side of the sofa. He then turned towards his wife. "I always said that Emily was much smarter than me."

Amanda laughed lovingly. "Knowing that you would never admit that anyone was smarter than you, I believe what you always told me was that Emily always knew best."

"See I knew one day you'd finally admit that you actually listen to me." Lee grinned playfully at his wife.

Amanda rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Well, listening and agreeing are two entirely different things, my love."

Lee placed his hands tenderly on either side of his wife's face. "You are, you know." At his wife's slightly raised brow, he lowered his voice and spoke in a more tender tone. "You're my love, my life and my soulmate."

"And you're mine." Amanda leaned forward and lovingly placed a kiss on her husband's lips. As Lee placed more pressure on hers, she slipped her arms around his shoulder and put her heart and soul into the embrace.

Dotty quietly rose from her seat and, picking the picture up, quickly made her way out of the room. She was going to return the drawing to its rightful place and give the two soulmates some much-needed private time. As she began ascending the stairs, she looked at the couple depicted in the sketch and couldn't help but think that both Lee and Amanda were right; Emily Farnsworth really did know best.

_**The End**_

**End Notes:**

The tag from the _"Das Gleisterschloss_" episode has the following dialogue (I couldn't find a transcript so I can't confirm what my ear heard as I replayed the tag a few dozen times, and the original script is somewhat different).

Tag as transcripted from playing the program back:

_Amanda: "Look there's an 'A' in the tree and there's a 'G'" _

_Lee points out "and there's an 'L'_

_  
Amanda shakes her head. "No, that's not an 'L', that's an 'N' (or 'M' hard to tell what she says) and there's a 'T'._

I took writer's liberty and changed the 'G' to an 'O' for the sake of this story. And while in the script (as you'll see below) it's clearly their names, I can't imagine them actually having to hunt for all the letters that make up Amanda King and Lee Stetson, that's a lot of letters to hide in one picture.

Tag as written in the original script:

_Lee and Amanda laugh and admire the sketch. Suddenly Lee points at something in the picture._

_AMANDA_

_Hey, isn't that a letter 'A' in the mountain?_

_LEE _

_Here's an 'L' in the castle!_

_Mrs. Farnsworth smiles as Lee and Amanda, like two excited children, continue to hunt for their names. They both point at the sketch at the same time and we FREEZE FRAME_


End file.
